Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Flight Sergeant Gordon Sydney Colless
 

Gordon Colless was born in Penrith, Sydney on 11 November 1917. He was the second son of Alfred and Minna Colless. Alfred was the proprietor of the local Nepean Times newspaper. Gordon’s two older brothers, Keith[1] and Roger[2], served in the 2nd AIF, and he also had a sister, Nancy Jane. The Colless family were an early pioneering family in the Nepean district and ran the Nepean Times from 1882  until 1962.

Gordon attended Penrith Intermediate High School, and left after completing his intermediate exams in 1932. He then studied at the Metropolitan Business College in Sydney and was employed as a clerk.

A well-built man, Gordon had served in the Militia for four years, initially in the 19/20th Battalion and later in the cavalry division as a trooper. When applying to enlist in the RAAF, Gordon stated that he engaged in the activities of riding, rowing, tennis, surfing and golf. He also admitted that he had a conviction for a traffic offence.

Gordon enlisted in the RAAF Reserve on 27 May 1941 and was called up for duty on 13 September 1941. On his enlistment, he was described as being 1.8 metres tall, of fair complexion, with hazel eyes and dark brown hair. He weighed seventy-eight kilograms. He completed his recruit training at 2 ITS in Bradfield Park before joining 5 EFTS in Narromine on 11 December 1941.

Gordon trained on the Tiger Moth biplane, accruing a total of seventy-three and a half hours’ flying. He graduated from elementary flying training in late February 1942, and, after a period of refresher training in March, he proceeded on pre-embarkation leave in early April.

Gordon and thirty-four other members of his course sailed from Sydney on the SS President Monroe on 24 April, landing in San Francisco on 15 May and arriving in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada three days later. The men spent three weeks in Edmonton before entraining for 10 SFTS in Dauphin, Manitoba to commence their service flying training.

In Dauphin, Gordon was a member of No. 1 Training Squadron and was instructed on the Cessna Crane twin-engine trainer. Over the next three months, whilst he did extremely well in theory, 13th on course, he struggled at times with his airmanship. It did not help to get a letter from Nance Holliday who he clearly had a deep affection for, telling him that she had married within days of him leaving Australia. He assured his parents not to worry that it might ‘break him up’, however it had clearly upset him.[3]  In the same letter home he told his parents about Hal Caswell being removed from course and stated that; ‘I came very close to going with him – I went for a test with the OC and made a proper mess of it, but in a second attempt with the Testing Officer I staged a bit better show and an still here (touch wood).’[4] On 25 September, with a total of 181 hours on the Crane, Gordon graduated as a pilot, was awarded his wings and promoted to sergeant.

Gordon found himself to be among fifteen of his class chosen to travel to the United Kingdom to undertake advanced flying training and join Bomber Command. The men were allowed to purchase US dollars and travel to New York before proceeding to the embarkation depot in Halifax, Nova Scotia. En route to New York, the men found themselves in danger of missing a connection in Montreal West. Gordon was given the task of racing to the ticket office while the remainder of the men shifted their luggage across to the New York train.

On 28 October 1942, Gordon embarked on the RMS Queen Elizabeth in Halifax. He sailed on 31 October and disembarked in Greenock, Scotland on 4 November. He then travelled overnight by train to 11 PDRC in Bournemouth.

In late December, Gordon commenced his advanced flying training at 11 AFU(P) at RAF Shawbury, Shropshire and at RAF Wymeswold, Leicestershire, flying the twin-engine Airspeed Oxford trainer. On 16 March, he and his course mate Bill Gunning joined 20 OTU at RAF Lossiemouth, on the Scottish coast east of Inverness.

At the OTU, Gordon had to form a crew. He managed to link up with three other Australians and a New Zealander with whom he would train and later fly on operations in the Wellington bomber, an aircraft already being replaced in front-line squadrons in Europe.

Gordon’s crew consisted of Sergeants Eric Gregory (BA),[5] Bernard Conroy (WO/AG)[6] and Douglas Dunn (AG)[7] as well as a New Zealander Flight Sergeant Russell Smit (N).[8] 

On the night of 11–12 June, Gordon flew his first mission, as second pilot to F-LT J. B. Smith, RAF to Düsseldorf in Germany. Smith and his crew were original members of the squadron, the seventh crew to be formed; the operation would be their twentieth. Smith and his crew would go on to complete thirty operations.

Ten days later, Gordon’s crew would undertake their first operation together on the night of 22–23 June. Their mission was to lay mines off the Dutch island of Terschelling. Mining operations were known as ‘gardening’, and, where possible, they were allocated to new crews as their first mission. The following night, the crew flew their first bombing mission, this time to Wuppertal, deep inside Germany, followed, twenty-four hours later, by another mission to the German city of Gelsenkirchen on the Rhine-Herne Canal.

After three missions in three nights, Gordon and his crew were given only one night off before they were in the air again, this time destined for Cologne.

Gordon’s final mission was another mining operation, this time a 700-kilometre flight to Lorient, on the French coast south of the Cherbourg peninsular, on the night of 29–30 June. It was the crew’s fourth mission in just five nights and Gordon’s fifth overall.

Flying in Wellington HE481, Gordon took off from RAF Leconfield at 2322, along with four other aircraft from the squadron, including one piloted by his friend Bill Gunning. The Wellington was loaded with one D400 mine, one D204 mine and 750 gallons of fuel, which would allow seven to eight hours’ flying time. The route had them flying down through the middle of England, into the approaches of the English Channel turning west and then south around the Pointe de Corsen so as to not fly over France, and then approaching Lorient from the south-west.

Gordon’s aircraft failed to return to base and investigations after the war found no trace of the missing aircraft or its crew. It was assumed that it had crashed at sea.

At the time of his death, Gordon was wearing the rank of sergeant. However, his promotion to Flight Sergeant had been approved and he was promoted posthumously. The rank was backdated to 25 March 1943.

Flight Sergeant Gordon Sydney Colless, RAAF and his crew have no known graves and they are commemorated on the Air Forces Memorial in Runnymede, Surrey in the United Kingdom.

Primary Reference: High in the Sunlit Silewnce, Tony Vine, Vivid Publishing 2017.

[1] Lt Keith Neale Colless NX 179780; b. 1 Aug 1915, d. 22 Jun 2003.
[2] Spr Roger Henry Colless NX124910; b. 2 May 1921, d. 28 Feb 2001.
[3] Letter from Gordon Colless to his parents, August 1942.
[4] Ibid
[5] Sgt Eric Otho Gregory, 401503; salesman of Kew, Vic; b. Northcote, Vic 13 Aug 1916; KIA 30 Jun 1943. Eric Gregory had been a qualified pilot who was stripped of his wings in late 1942 after two accidents while landing at night during his advanced flying training in the UK.
[6] F-Sgt Bernard Keith Conroy, 420152; of Emmaville, NSW; b. Emmaville, NSW, 21 Jul 1922; KIA 30 Jun 1943.
[7] F-Sgt Douglas Ashton Dunn, 413555, RAAF; of Concord, NSW; b. Dulwich Hill, NSW 7 Aug 1923; KIA 30 Jun 1943. Dunn enlisted on the same day as Gordon Colless and was in the same initial training course at Bradfield Park.
[8] F-Sgt Russell Theodore Smit, 39307, RNZAF; of Mount Albert, Auckland, NZ; b. Raven, Alberta, Canada, 1916 KIA 30 Jun 1943.